Splice: So who am I supposed to be rooting for?

Freezer wrote:

I liked Splice, personally. I could go into a point-by-point rebuttal of kleine_kat's take (which probably won't help because her(?)

Yup

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main beef seems to be not with the plot but the Clive and Elsa being unscientific idjits)... But I'll let Movie Bob do it for me, since he says it all more eloquently than I could (plus I haven't watched the movie in a while):



ETA: On the "Uncomfortable fan art" front: Neytiri in a landslide.

I watched it. I want to be convinced that Splice is actually cool and edgy, like Cinema Bob thinks. But I still disagree with almost everything he says. It's not 'Adult' or 'clever'. Sorry, it isn't. Yes, this movie is more about the mental and emotional instability of its characters, and I give him the fact that it is the Frankenstein principle upside down, but for me, it DOESN'T work either as a monster film, a drama, or a science fiction movie. He may think so, but I never got it.

So Freezer, nope, you haven't killed my beef : )

I would be interested in your rebuttal, though. I didn't set out to hate this movie, I wanted to see it in the theatres, and if you have some convincing reasons (besides Adrian Brodie being in it) it is actually well set-up, do go ahead!


Oh, Mr Doobie. So you think that the fact that Elsa has sex with same-species Clive two times in the movie and doesn't get pregnant by him, but does get impregnated by ManBearPig's I-used-to-be-a-girl-ten-minutes-ago mid-thrust interrupted pre-cum is, I don't know, logical?

Yeah, that sounds like a really weak case, indeed.

Well, as I saw it, Dren was more a MacGuffin than a character. The movie was really about Elsa and Clive and the fact that they're as emotionally immature as Dren. They're bad scientists - creating Dren with no real goal mind other than "What will happen if...", but that stems, again, from immaturity. Elsa treats Dren like a doll (not even a pet. One expects a pet to misbehave and have to be taught). Once she shows signs of having a mind of her own, Elsa goes 180 and treats her like a bigger version of Fred or Ginger.

Clive's even worse: Whereas Elsa has a Freudian Excuse for her behavior, Clive just appears to be spineless. He bows to Elsa's wishes the moment she asserts any sort of pressure, is more or less dragged along with her ill-defined plan to raise Dren, and succumbs to Dren's "seduction" with a token protest as if he was simply waiting for an excuse.

It's that flawed dynamic that drives the movie. It's not a matter of "Will things go bad," it's "how bad will it get" and "who's fault will it be when it does?" As you say, real scientists wouldn't have started down that road in the first place, let alone gone as far as Clive and Elsa did. That's largely the point. Would've Dren have gone nuts in the end if Elsa had any sort of real empathy or maternal skill? Or if Clive had enough of a spine to stand up to Elsa at some point? Or if they'd realized they were in over their heads and either disposed of Dren "in utero" or turned her over to their superiors.

But then, that's problem, isn't it. Dren isn't the movie, Clive and Elsa are. And if you can't empathize with them (and you don't have to like a character to empathize with them), you're going to hate this movie.

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Oh, Mr Doobie. So you think that the fact that Elsa has sex with same-species Clive two times in the movie and doesn't get pregnant by him, but does get impregnated by ManBearPig's I-used-to-be-a-girl-ten-minutes-ago mid-thrust interrupted pre-cum is, I don't know, logical?

That's not even what I said.

And while I'm here, yes, it is logical for someone to have sex unprotected twice, not get pregnant, but than get knocked up the third. Even if it is off of pre-cum. Think of all the married couples that pump out gobs and gobs of cum trying to get pregnant, but don't succeed for weeks, months, or even years. But than, you think that taking a good shower after sex is a good way to prevent pregnancy. So there you go.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

And while I'm here, yes, it is logical for someone to have sex unprotected twice, not get pregnant, but than get knocked up the third. Even if it is off of pre-cum. Think of all the married couples that pump out gobs and gobs of cum trying to get pregnant, but don't succeed for weeks, months, or even years.

What is it you don't understand about man-bear-pig? Sorry, but this is a sex-changing superhybrid that isn't even of the same species. Your logic fails.

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But than, you think that taking a good shower after sex is a good way to prevent pregnancy. So there you go.

And that's not what I said. Let's agree we disagree and keep it at that, ok?

Edited because I was being petty.

Imma leave this here.

Jesus. wrote:

Imma leave this here.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm not surprised, but somewhat amused at the outrage everyone keeps displaying at the incest and rape parts, though. It may be the last straw, but there is so much wrong with this movie that the incest bit struck me as funny rather than shocking.

Freezer, I think you have a point. I cannot empathize with Elsa and Clive. At all. For reasons I've repeated ad nauseam. And you are also right about the fact that Dren is nothing but a catalyst, not so much as a protagonist OR antagonist. So yeah, you're right, I hated the main characters, I didn't understand them, and I couldn't even accept them as real people and therefore the whole movie was bollocks to me.

(I still can't see how anyone CAN empathize, but hey, that's me )

kleine_kat wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

And while I'm here, yes, it is logical for someone to have sex unprotected twice, not get pregnant, but than get knocked up the third. Even if it is off of pre-cum. Think of all the married couples that pump out gobs and gobs of cum trying to get pregnant, but don't succeed for weeks, months, or even years.

What is it you don't understand about man-bear-pig? Sorry, but this is a sex-changing superhybrid that isn't even of the same species. Your logic fails.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

I'm not saying it's any more likely that Dren made the girl pregnant. I'm simply pointing out the logic kleine used to debunk the pregnancy was, for the most part, pretty weak.

I was never saying it was possible, just that the only real reasoning you had was "hybrid".

One would think if you'd gotten as far as making large lumps of meat out of nothing, somebody somewhere would give you the money to take it further. I mean, a cure for cancer? Jeez, I'd fund that. I'd try to avoid creating a new intelligent species that threatened life by inserting human DNA but still, I'd fund it if they were that obviously close.